The Death of Happiness, Real and Apparent

No work, no reward.

It’s an age old saying that no one pays attention to anymore. Society needs to realize that it is raising a generation of people that do not understand the simple concept of work vs. reward. The real happiness is harder to attain when there is no work involved in getting it.

As we have learned it is not so much about the destination as it is the getting there, the new generations must learn that just because they live in a world where almost everything is available with minimal effort (except money) this doesn’t mean they should only make the minimal effort. “Happiness” is available in an online order, a home delivery, or a phone call away. But as the bar for happiness is continually lowered via its easier and easier attainability, so the experience of happiness is continually dimmed.

When having movies, music, food, etc., is available at people’s fingertips, they don’t have to put in any effort to get it. As people are conditioned more and more to have what they want, when they want it, and right away, they become increasingly numb to what it is they want. The things that keep coming faster and faster to them, with less and less work, these things start to satisfy them less and less, and they begin to realize the secret to true happiness.

Since everyone wants to be happy, this shouldn’t be the case. If you can understand when want to watch a movie but do not want to drive to a theater, it is available at the click of a button. This should be great news right? It means you can have what you want instantly. Instant gratification of your desires. And when your desires are gratified, this equals happiness right?

Well, it doesn’t. The problem with happiness is that we are looking for it in all the wrong places, much like love in the Johnny Lee song. And this problem arises from a misunderstanding, or lack of understanding of one’s true identity.

When you identify what something is, you know what that thing needs to function. If you identify an object as a car, then you know that the car needs certain things to function like oil, gasoline, etc.

The majority of the human population identifies themselves with their body. And so we know what the body needs to function, and to be happy. It needs food, a comfortable living situation, a nice car, a good job to provide these things, good physical experiences, nice clothes, etc. We know beyond a doubt that these things will make us happy.

But the problem is that we know wrong.

Getting all of these things will certainly bring us some temporary happiness, because they are things our temporary body can function with, but they will not satisfy us, because we are not the body.

We are in reality- individual spirit souls that wear the body, the way a body wears clothes. We are like a bird inside a cage. If you polish the cage and clean it and take very good care of the cage, but neglect the bird living inside, the bird will die. If we only gather material possessions and experiences to make ourselves happy, we will be slowly dying inside from a lack of what we need which is true happiness. This is a fantastic, enlightening and yet simple to understand message from the Science of Identity Foundation about discovering real happiness.

One thing that everyone can agree on is that the most happiness comes from love. From loving someone, and from being loved by someone. Except again we find ourselves in an imperfect situation where loving the people in this world will not completely satisfy us, and satisfy the deeper need for love and happiness that we experience. And in the modern society where everything is reachable at the touch of a button, at our fingertips, the way people try to experience love is also damaged. Love is not something that can be instantly gratified, but everyone wants it instantly. And so relationships become less about the spiritual, the emotional, and more about the instant physical contact.

But we are evading true happiness by seeking the temporary and fake happiness of the material. We, the soul, need eternal spiritual happiness born of true loving relationships.

The more we try to get happiness from the things and situations in this world, the emptier we will find ourselves becoming. The more we polish the cage and take care of our body and material needs, the less our inner spiritual self will grow and be happy.

Society needs to slow down and take a step back from the crazy hectic world in which we live. People constantly rushing to and fro to make more money so that they can buy more things to have more situations with more people – waves of humanity rocking about in a frenzied rush for the shore of happiness. When people take the time to step back and introspect on their lives, when they put away their gadgets and perfect lives and instead focus on helping others, spending more time with their loved ones and their families, then we will start to taste a small fraction of the real happiness we so desperately need to survive.

The more we remove ourselves from the tangle of rushed material life, and begin to situate ourselves in a life of caring for others, the more we will appreciate the finer things in life that can point us in the right direction. We will start to see the things that really matter and that true happiness cannot be brought to us by clicking a button. The less we will care about how many likes we receive, and the more we will care about how many people we know that like us and want to be around us.

Then we can start to take happiness in simpler things, in the journey and not the destination. Then next time we want to get something, maybe we’ll drive to the store to purchase it rather than order it online. Maybe we’ll take our time and realize we don’t even need that thing at all and that we could be spending the time with real people instead.

So slow down and rediscover what real happiness is, which also requires understanding the science of identity.

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I love to explore and share real wisdom and knowledge which answers the deepest burning questions about life and existence :) thank you
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